The Definition of 'Emergency'
by Kerrison
Summary: Booth offers his definition of 'an Emergency' after receiving the phone call he had always dreaded.


**AN: Again, blame d'angeli. This was her writing prompt where I probably got WAY off track. But either way, I'll share it with you all. Be nice, please. Feedback is appreciated. Hope you all enjoy.**

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His shoes slipped on the linoleum as he rounded the corner at almost-full speed. He was abiding by the 'no running in the halls' rule, but just barely.

His eyes caught sight of her bent head, her auburn hair falling in front of her face, and she looked up, catching his expression.

"I'm okay," she said, holding up her hands to forestall the panic-attack she knew he was holding at bay. "Booth, I'm okay," she repeated as he moved closer.

Booth ran a shaking hand through his hair and looked her up and down, taking in her disheveled appearance.

His gaze stilled on the small sutures on her cheekbone, holding closed a laceration. He hooked her chin with his finger and tilted her head so he could get a better look at the gash.

"It was merely a precaution. I don't believe it truly needed stitches but the doctor felt it was the most thorough way of ensuring there won't be a scar," she explained.

He nodded, tilting her head the other way and seeing the abrasion on her temple and the small burn on her chin. Booth sighed, moving his hand down her arm and delicately tracing the wrappings on her wrists.

"My wrists were jammed pretty severely during the impact," she offered. "They'll be fine in a few days. The wrap just provides support. It's merely a precaution," Brennan repeated under his inquisitive gaze.

He swallowed before clearing his voice. "Anything else?" His voice was ragged and he couldn't keep the fear and anger from seeping into his words despite the true attempt not to.

"A minor concussion," she half shrugged. "And I have some lower back pain but I'm fairly certain that's just from being jarred on impact."

He swallowed again but didn't speak.

"I believe that I was relatively lucky," she said. "I'm going to be shopping for a new car tomorrow. The damage to my car is too extensive to expect it to be repaired."

"First off, you're not going to be shopping for a new car tomorrow. You're staying in bed tomorrow." Booth felt his voice take on the most authoritarian tone he had ever used with her and he couldn't reel it in, despite her widening eyes. "Secondly, you are _not _getting another rinky-dink sports car. You'll get something that has airbags _everywhere._ Because precautionary or not, you going home covered in gauze after some moron in a giant SUV runs a red light is **NOT **my idea of a fun Friday night. Do you understand?"

Midway through his words, he had spun and started pacing a short path between her bed and the other bed in the room.

She watched him as he paced and tried not to gawk when he stopped on his final words, pointing a definite finger at her. Brennan reached out with her ace-wrapped hand and grabbed his quaking finger, gently tugging him towards her.

He stepped closer, feeling his chest heave with the fear he had pent inside him since receiving the call from the ER. He was the 'In-Case-of-Emergency' entry on her phone. And since she had been too dizzy to dial when arriving on site, the nurse had called on her behalf.

She placed a hand on his forearm and a hand on his chest. "I'm okay, Booth," she said again, her words even and her tone clear. "Really. It's all superficial. I'll be fine."

"I don't care," he grunted, wrapping his arms around her seated form, ever so gently pulling her to him. Her head came to his chest and she leaned into his embrace, giving each other the reassurance they both needed.

"And it's highly ill-advised for me to stay in bed tomorrow," she said, her words muffled against his shirt. "Muscle soreness becomes more pronounced with inactivity."

"I don't care," he repeated, bending his head and placing a tender kiss to the crown of her head. "You're not leaving my sight tomorrow."

"That's entirely unnecessary. It's your day off. I'm sure you have other things to do - I'm fine."

"If you tell me you're 'fine' one more time while you're sitting in the ER all swaddled up like one of your beloved mummies, I'm going to get _really _irritated, Temperance," he growled.

She swallowed as he used her full name. She could count on one hand the number of times it had crossed his lips and she knew he was on-edge when he resorted to calling her 'Temperance.'

Brennan nodded against his shirt and felt his hand caress the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair softly.

The both startled slightly when a knock sounded on the door jamb. A middle aged nurse wandered in, a knowing smile on her face.

"Dr. Brennan, I have your discharge papers here," she said gently, holding out the forms.

Brennan extricated her arm from Booth who had failed to step away from her when the nurse appeared, as she had expected. He was still close; his fingers still playing with her hair, as if he needed some tangible reassurance that she was alive.

She awkwardly held the ink pen, her fingers having trouble grasping it around the bandages supporting her wrist. After a moment of frustrated attempts, she was finally able to sign her discharge papers.

The 'after-care' sheet was summarily pulled from her grasp and Booth eyed it quickly. "We can fill the prescriptions tonight at the all-night pharmacy," he said to Brennan before turning his attention back to the nurse. "Is it still every two hours for a concussion?"

The woman nodded. "It's a good rule," she replied. "Younger doctors say it's unnecessary but some still hold by the old practices. The only harm it'll do is you'll both be tired in the morning," she said with a wink. "Give us a call if you have questions. Make an appointment with your physician in about four days for those stitches to come out."

The nurse watched for a moment as Booth helped Brennan stand, holding out his hands for her in deference to the sore muscles in her back. She smiled again and left, knowing her patient was in good hands.

Booth lifted her navy blue jacket off the nearby chair. He moved to hold it up for her to put on, but realized that it was still bloody and, likely, littered with glass shards. Instead he slipped off his own jacket and draped it around her shoulders, ignoring her eye roll.

"What was that about two hours?"

"You've got a mild concussion," he said, his hand resting on the small of her back and supporting her as she moved stiffly down the hall towards the exit. "You're not supposed to sleep for more than two hours at a time."

"That's an antiquated practice, Booth," she scoffed, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over her and she leaned into him, her shoulder resting against his ribs. "Prior to our modern medical procedures, it was the best way to ensure head-trauma patients didn't slip into comas."

"I know," he said. "Parker fell climbing a tree a few years ago. Got knocked silly. I learned _all _about head-wounds. Including how much they bleed."

"It's because there are fine blood vessels near the surface of the skin- "

He cut her off. "For someone who refuses to work on flesh, you sure do like to talk about it a lot," he teased.

"Just because it's not my specialty doesn't mean I'm not well educated on the subject," she retorted.

He steered her towards the SUV he had parked in the 'emergency' lane.

"Booth, you're not an ambulance," she chastised as he held open the door of the car for her.

It took a split second of hesitation before he settled his hands gently on her hips to help her climb up into the car much less gracefully than normal.

"Ya know, Bones, I'll happily pay the ticket. As far as I'm concerned, this was an emergency. The lane says 'Emergency.' This was an emergency," he said, watching as she settled into the seat with a wince.

"I'm fine-"

"Any time you're in the ER, it's a damned emergency, Bones," he hissed.

"There are patients who have worse injuries than I do," she said, holding up her wrists. "It's precautionary. I'm fine!"

In a split second he closed the distance between himself and the edge of the car, invading her personal space. "You're cut open," he said, his thumb reaching out and tracing her stitches gently. "And hurt." His other hand moved to the burn on her chin, effectively cradling her face in his hands. "And in my world, that's as big an emergency as there can be."

She watched him watch her. She saw the fear in his eyes and the tension behind them. She saw the frustration that she knew was linked to some ridiculous reasoning that if he had only been _with _her tonight, maybe she wouldn't have been hit.

She reached out and touched his own face, cupping his cheek. Before she could rationalize her actions, she closed the space between them and caressed his lips with her own.

It was soft. And warm. And simple.

It was far from the most lustful kiss she had ever experienced. However, in the brief seconds their lips touched, she felt her breath get spirited away. She felt her eyes flutter shut and her heart actually did seem to skip a beat, despite all her medical knowledge to the contrary.

He pulled away and looked at her with a shocked yet contented expression. She offered him a half-smile, unsure of herself for what was possibly the first time in years.

"Don't do that to me again, Bones," he whispered, leaning his forehead in and resting it against hers.

"Kiss you?"

"No. You can kiss me as much as you'd like," Booth chuckled and pulled back slightly before placing a quick kiss to her lips. "Don't scare the crap out of me like that again, okay? No more car accidents. No more nurses calling me with bad news. No more death-defying stunts, okay?"

She rolled her eyes. "It wasn't an intentional stunt."

Booth stepped back, watching as she shifted in her seat and moved to buckle in. "Just … just don't do it again, Bones. Otherwise next time _you'll _be collecting _me _out of the cardiac unit."

She rolled her eyes and he felt the tension leave his shoulders. Booth shut the door and proceeded around to the other side of the SUV, sending up a quick prayer of thanks for her safety.

And the kiss. That deserved a prayer of thanks, too.


End file.
